Blizzard: “never our intention” to shut down World of Starcraft mod

Blizzard has issued a statement explaining its intentions and actions so far regarding this week’s World of Starcraft Starcraft 2 mod, having invited creator Ryan to visit the Blizzard studios and meet the development team.

Gamefront reports Blizzard’s comment that it “was never [the team’s] intention to stop development on the mod”.

Blizzard’s letter explains that the decision to have videos of the mod pulled from YouTube was part of standard proceedings.

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“We wanted to discuss the title of the mod with the developer, and as part of our routine procedure, we contacted YouTube to request the video be removed while that discussion took place,” it states, before commenting that the developer was “curious” about the project.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the continued development of this mod, and as part of our ongoing discussion, we’ve extended an offer to the developer to visit the Blizzard campus and meet with the StarCraft II development team.”

The letter reiterates Blizzard’s firm support and encouragement of the od community.

“As always, we actively encourage development of custom maps and mods for StarCraft II, … That’s why we release an editor with our RTS games, and why we feature top player-created content in the custom game search. It’s also why we held a contest to spotlight the best community-crafted StarCraft II mods at last year’s BlizzCon, and why we’ll continue to improve Battle.net to better showcase player-created content.

“As always, we appreciate all of the efforts of the talented and enthusiastic mod-making community, and we look forward to seeing and playing what they create using the StarCraft II editor in the future.”

This isn’t Ryan’s first brush with the industry; Blues News reports the modder was approached by League of Legends developer Riot Games with an offer to interview.